Cooperative Agreement for CESU - Great Lakes – Northern Forest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

U.S Geological Survey is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU Partner for research that quantifies relations between wild rice production, changes in water levels, and other human- and climate-induced stressors. In addition, the research should produce a watershed ecohydrological modeling framework informed by existing scientific data and American Indian knowledge and experience to quantify changes in water levels and identify threats to wild rice caused by predicted scenarios of climate-driven changes in precipitation, evapotranspiration, and runoff. The modeling framework will be used to understand wild rice responses to various future climate scenarios so that resource managers and tribal members can use results to sustainably manage wild rice populations through changing climates. This project will advance understanding of changes in wild rice sustainability in response to changing climate and will present information that is timely, relevant to resource managers and tribal members, and needed to develop and implement sound adaptive management approaches. This research also will help identify future science opportunities for the Midcontinent Climate Adaptation Science Center (MC CASC) to pursue.

The recipient will facilitate scenario planning workshops with tribal community members to discuss scenario model outputs and develop management actions to mitigate and adapt to climate-related impacts to wild rice production. The recipient will also be responsible for publishing model information, data, and interpretative products in publicly-available formats.

Research Objectives:

1. Develop a watershed ecohydrological modeling framework that can predict water-level
threats to manoomin due to climate-driven changes in precipitation, ET, and runoff;
2. Iteratively translate technical findings through tribally centered scenario planning to
identify potential adaptation strategies to respond to climate impacts on manoomin.